Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer / Sarasota, Florida
14th Sunday after Pentecost / 17 August 2008
Have you been watching the Olympics? I have only watched parts of the competitions, but the parts I have seen are truly amazing. I saw a segment of women’s gymnastics in which those young women somersaulted with twists and double-twists and were still able to land on their feet! It is simply amazing that human beings can do that!
The swimming competitions have been especially exciting. Michael Phelps is the star and has now beaten Mark Spitz’s record in the number of gold medals he has won. He has beaten all of the records, many of which were set by him. We want him to succeed. We want him to go as far as he can go. We want to see our fellow human being and fellow countryman push the limits. Did we want him to beat Mark Spitz’s record? I know I did. And I also know, and Michael Phelps knows, that one day someone will come along and beat his record. And I hope that happens, too!
But I ask you this question: Do you think God is concerned about how well Michael Phelps does in the Olympics? You know, I think God is concerned about that. I think God rejoices whenever we succeed in conquering a difficult task. I think he rejoices when a human being is able to do something physically that no human being has ever before been able to do. After all, God created our bodies. He knows what this creation of his is able to do, and he must rejoice when someone discovers that his or her body is capable of more than anyone ever thought possible.
I don’t know if Michael Phelps is religious in any way. I haven’t seen any evidence of that; neither have I read anything that dealt with his faith. If he is like so many of his generation in this country, he has no faith. I also believe that God is concerned about that. God wants Michael Phelps and all of the other Olympic competitors to seek after him and find him. God has put that desire for him deep within each of our souls, whether we recognize it or not. He wants each of us to know him, to love him, and to serve him through our Lord Jesus Christ with the single-mindedness of an Olympic competitor.
Daniel O’Leary, a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Leeds in England, wrote in the periodical The Tablet, “The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote, ‘To be a saint is to will one thing.’ People rarely do. The world is too much with us. Even the most steadfast stalwarts get distracted. To persevere in the quest of an inner passion, to take on and transcend the competition of a shadowed nature, to keep an eye on the horizons of the spirit, requires a divine hunger, an infinite appetite for God, an incessant yearning for what is always just beyond our reach.”
The Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel had that kind of will of which Kierkegaard and O’Leary speak. The woman, being a Canaanite, represented everything that was godless to the Jews. Jesus and his disciples had left Israel for a time of rest and renewal. They needed to get away from it all, and the disciples urged Jesus to dismiss the woman.
Everything we know of Jesus would suggest that he would never turn away someone who was truly in need. But for reasons he only knows, he did dismiss her. He tells her that his mission is only to the lost sheep of Israel. He even speaks harshly to her, saying that helping her was akin to giving children’s bread to the dogs. The woman even accepts being in that category, yet she persists by saying, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
The story ends by Jesus praising the woman for her great faith, and telling his disciples that in all of Israel, the place where God had called him to minister, he had not found such great faith. He healed the woman’s daughter as the result of her mother’s faith.
We shouldn’t get too hung up on why Jesus would originally respond the way he did to the woman. Perhaps it was to test her faith as a sign to the disciples, or perhaps he was joking with her. We simply are not given that information. What we are given is that the woman’s faith in Jesus was great and single-minded, and that as a result he healed her daughter.
I believe that the single-mindedness of the Canaanite woman is the place where the Gospel most closely touches us as Christians in the United States in the 21st century. Like Canaan, our culture has much that is non-Christian in it, even though there are many in our country who profess Christ as Lord. True, we want everything that God will give to us, but all too often we are not willing to submit ourselves to his will. We know we are to turn the other cheek when someone hurts us, yet we still harbor grudges and seek revenge. We know we are not to tear down the reputations of others, yet we see our gossiping not as sinful but as a bit of harmless talk. We know the scriptural norms concerning our sexuality, and yet we follow the culture in believing that we have grown beyond those pre-modern injunctions. We know we are to support the work of the Church, yet we are more likely to cut our giving to God before we give up our Latte at Starbuck’s or our membership at the club.
We live like that, and then we wonder why God isn’t more active in our lives. We cut off his arms and his legs in our lives, speaking metaphorically, and then we wonder why he isn’t doing Olympic style works. One follows the other.
Our Lord died on the cross for our sins. But the meaning of the cross doesn’t end there, as the Collect for today beautifully states. The cross is also the example of how we are to live our lives.
Do you want God to be more active in your daily life? You must sacrifice your time in order to pray.
Do you want God to be more active regarding the concrete aspects of your life? You must sacrifice the first fruits of your income to God.
Do you want peace regarding your lifestyle? You must sacrifice your desires to conform them to God’s will.
The extent to which God is able to penetrate our lives is determined by our willingness to let him in. He wants us all to be as successful in things of the spirit as Michael Phelps is in swimming in the Olympics. Are you and I willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to accomplish that?
Let us pray. Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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